Berserkers of the Deep

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Has anyone ever thought of using an N9 bless with MA/LA R'lyeh before? If so, I couldn't find any trace of it in the forum.

Granted, R'lyeh doesn't need a bless to be effective, and an N9 bless isn't cheap, as nature isn't really R'lyeh's forte when it comes to choosing a pretender. On the other hand, R'lyeh (especially in LA) can afford it, and in my tests it turned out to be surprisingly effective. And, best of all, it turned out to be incredibly funny.

The idea here is to take advantage of the (apparently underused) Starspawn priest's beefiness, cheap cost, and built-in life-draining attack/mind blast combo, to use him as a cheap thug or a communion slave that will never tire nor rout.

Or even both - at the same time: if you use some in a reverse communion-like setup, the one and only buff they will ever have to cast themselves is Body Ethereal, then just let them fire and/or attack - while the masters take care of whatever other buff their slaves may need (don't forget Holy Avenger!) Now, it's true that some of these buffs may cause lots of fatigue to slaves due to magic paths mismatches, but Summon Earthpower and Soul Vortex+lobodyguards is just what you need to fix that... on top an Earth bless if you can afford it. And of course, once the slaves are engaged in melee, life drain comes as a welcome bonus (plus, it's a magical attack!)

The icing on the cake is, while Starspawns often have problems hitting things due to abysmally low morale and a range 0 melee attack (which is just a longer way to write 'repel'), this issue disappears once the berserking kicks in.

As an aside, berserker priests can also hold their own at the Void Gate (provided you script them to cast Bless at the end of their buff cycle, then either fire or attack.) I've seen Void summoners defeat groups of Greater Othernesses (Body Ethereal works great here) and even Vastnesses quite consistently, the only real threats seem to be Things That Should Not Bes and Horrors. You can use immobile summons as bodyguards and bless them too, but it's rather tricky to get everyone properly blessed. I've found out that, generally, a lone priest scripted (Body Ethereal)(Luck)(Magic Resistance)(Quickness/Holy Avenger/something)(Bless)(fire) does just OK. Of course, the safest way to keep your summoner alive is still to use Returning, but that's a lot less fun than having him trash Vastnesses single-handedly - without any support, gems, or equipment (that wouldn't be fair! )

OK, now there are obvious counters to berserking Starspawns. E.g., lifeless troops will negate the effects of both Soul Vortex and life drain - but since most of these troops are either magical or undead, as R'lyeh you're well-equipped to adapt your strategy to deal with them. Cheap thugs armed with Elf Banes are probably a greater concern.

Another thing I noticed: while Othernesses benefit from the improved regeneration, they'll also tire a lot from trampling (especially if you Quicken'ed them), even with their low Enc. So you might want to consider a minor Earth bless on top of N9 (it'll benefit your priests-thugs too). On the good side, berserking Othernesses don't dissolve, like mindless units use to do when left without magical leadership. Even though their morale reads '50', they'll still fight to the bitter end, and may even win on their own and survive the battle (at least most of the time - for some strange reason, I've seen a leaderless berserking Otherness stand still then go poof once in a while, but most of the time they just keep on trampling everything in sight.)

Yet another weird behavior I can't explain: sometimes, when I set a reverse communion up (as described above) with slaves scripted something like, (Communion Slave)(Body Ethereal)(fire closest), they won't actually start firing (i.e., they're just idling) until some (or sometimes, all) the masters do. Even though they've accumulated less than 100 fatigue. It seems that when at least one of the masters uses a (fire) order, things get somewhat messed up. Yet again, sometimes everything seem to work as expected. I've tried many different configurations, I still have no clue at the moment about what causes this inconsistent behavior (but for what I know, reverse communions are an unintended consequence of a glitch in the communion mechanics, so I just guess one shouldn't expect 100% consistent behavior here.)

OK, this probably looks like a crazy idea. But at least it should make priests more appealing vis-a-vis regular Starspawn mages? (Although personally I've always been fond of Starspawn priests, N9 or not.)

And as I said before, it's hilariously funny at times. Tentacled Berzerkers of Doom can't be anything but funny.

Thoughts?